Comment by kylehotchkiss
3 days ago
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/QFA63/history/202501...
This is one of the more remote flights humanity operates. What even are the diversion points on this route, McMurdo airfield?
I'm not an Elon shrill but this seems as an ideal place for SpaceX to be re-entering things as they can choose with minimal damage to ecosystems.
I know you're not exactly serious, but to answer anyway: McMurdo isn't near this flight path, it's at New Zealand's longitude (so 2000 miles east of Australia) and much farther south. Perth would be the closest airport for almost all of that flight path.
(Your core point is correct, this trajectory is about as remote as SpaceX can possibly get, even if it's near a small number of flights. Let's not extend NIMBYism to space and ban SpaceX from everywhere.)
This is an interesting article about what is considered the most remote point on earth: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/point-n... A lot of satellite debris is targeted there but of course we cannot expect all space debris to be so controlled and in this case SpaceX went for a region that was quite remote.
But why does SpaceX need so much of that space? It's a massive ocean - drop the satellites somewhere else, or at a time there aren't airlines in the way.
Because small differences early in the trajectory result in large differences later on. Think of driving a trailer backwards and imagine you weren't allowed to do corrections after a certain point.
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Most likely they don’t, but safety margins for experimental rockets need to be large.
I’m a bit surprised the Southern Indian Ocean wasn’t prioritized. That is even more remote.
The flight was over the Southern Indian Ocean?
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/QFA63/history/202501...
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I don't think there are diversion points, you either keep going to destination or turn around. The A380 is rated for ETOPS-330, that's 5hr30min from a diversion airport.
Incase anyone is wondering about ETOPS-N
For example, if an aircraft is rated for ETOPS-180, it means that it is able to fly with full load and just one engine for three hours. [1]
Obviously in this case it 5hours 30 minutes on one engine at full load.
-- Slight edit: Unclear if with a 4 engine its rated with 2 functional or still 1 functional engine.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS#Usage
I believe it's not just that it is able to fly with 1 engine. It's that the probability of a secondary engine failure in that time is below a certain threshold. Most twin engine planes can fly perfectly fine for basically any distance with an engine out, ETOPs provides confidence that the other one won't fail too.
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It is my understanding from a (no-longer-available) MIT OCW aircraft systems design video that these requirements are based on one engine failure on the aircraft, regardless of the number of engines on the aircraft.
ETOPS per se makes no sense for a 4 engine aircraft (the T in the acronym is "twin-engine".) Three- or four-engine aircraft have equivalent engine-out long-range operations ratings, though.
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A380 has 4 engines, so maybe it doees this with more than one ?
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does aircraft only operate engine as minimal as possible to save fuel or they burn more if they use fewer engine to having engine work extra because of its weight ?
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> The A380 is rated for ETOPS-330
I thought ETOPS is for 2 engine aircraft. Are there minimum diversionary requirements for 4 engine aircraft?
Yes that changed some time ago, it applies to 4 engine aircraft as well.
You are correct. Diversion points are Perth or Durban. Nowhere else.
It's incredible a 14 hour flight can run with that level of certainty!
>This is one of the more remote flights humanity operates. What even are the diversion points on this route, McMurdo airfield?
The acronym ETOPS is sometimes jokingly expanded to Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim... but, in this case, it is perhaps closer to reality than usual.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS
In this case the water's probably cold enough nobody would need to swim for long.
> What even are the diversion points...
perhaps Diego Garcia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia
I used to geek out on this, another one from pre-covid was Santiago Chile to Sydney AUS, 2-3x a week. That looked like one _lonely_ flight.
https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/QFA28
> shrill
I suspect you may have meant to say shill instead.
Why is that anyone else's problem besides SpaceX's? Are they going to pay for it?
Why would Qantas have the implicit right to the airspace first? Space travel and air travel are both value-added human activities. I can't see why we would always prioritize air travel (particularly in very remote locations like this) over space travel.
Most flights will never be impacted this way.
You're kidding right? This is space debris. If a Qantas flight crashed into your neighborhood, you know who's responsible right?
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A flight is using a very narrow path, the rocket debris is "claiming" a huge unavoidable areas over probably a relatively long period of time.
I wonder what the math is on the plane actually getting hit if it took it's normal route.
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> Space travel ... value-added human activities
Heavily debatable.
And you're equating to SpaceX dumping debris and trash in addition to their original flight path to a plane's flight path. Those are not equal things.
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Do you consider launching spy satellites "value added human activities"?
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I can't imagine that much ... nothing out there.
[flagged]
> Is this [SpaceX flight] for the benefit of humanity?
Yes. Much more so than that one weird flight that's "merely profitable for a single company".
> Do we all get a profit sharing check at some point?
Yes, in the form of more space sector jobs, more jobs and economic benefits that come from more kinds of useful stuff being launched to space more often, and eventually - hopefully - more jobs in space and economic benefits coming from that.
That really downplays the amount of collaboration needed to make a flight like this happen. The airplane was designed and built by tons of people in lots of different counties, building on a century of aviation industry knowledge. The amount of work and experience that goes into making a machine that can safely be 5+ hours from a landing site is enormous.
None of that means you're automatically operating it on behalf of humanity or even to the benefit of all humanity.
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